Am I eating too many calories?

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ouiouilezizi
ouiouilezizi Posts: 36
in Food and Nutrition
Hello everyone!

Just started using MFP and am trying to grasp the whole net calorie vs. actual calorie idea. I've read dozens of threads, and my main concern is, since we can't actually accurately calculate exercise calories, then isn't it very likely that one could overestimate and eat too much when eating them back?

I'm working out like crazy: about one to two hours a day, strength 3-4 times a week, mixing it up with cardio, interval, classes, etc. It's tricky to know how many calories my body is burning. Im 22, weigh 232-35 pounds and need to weigh 175lbs (with a loss of 2lbs/week).

I suppose I'll weigh myself on Wednesday again to see what's going on and if this is working, but I'm worried that I'm eating too much. The past few days I've net between 1350 and 1400 calories, but my actual intake is around 1800 to 2400, depending on how many workouts I have. Before tracking my eating, I was eating probably 2800 calories per day, ha, with little or no exercise btw.

Thanks for the help and input!

Replies

  • GooneyAngel
    GooneyAngel Posts: 90
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    Buy a HRM to track your calories you burn with each workout. I have Polar FT4 and love it! It cost $89. A little pricy, but, it has more than paid for itself! I hope this helps....
  • mapexdrummer69
    mapexdrummer69 Posts: 445
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    It can be very tricky calculating your needs. This should help a bit, but at the end of the day, you'll have to track your weight loss/gain to determine if you're eating too much for weight loss.

    http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=121703981


    Please see the above link.
  • yyzdnl
    yyzdnl Posts: 127 Member
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    I have found the best two tools for this calorie counting thing is a heart rate monitor and food scale. It is real easy to overestimate cals burned and under estimate cals in. It is good you are eating your exercise calories back, but you should consider adding a fudge factor (not eating fudge) to compensate for errors.
  • srp2011
    srp2011 Posts: 1,829 Member
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    MFP estimates of calories burned are quite often too high - this is one reason I don't follow the whole "you have to eat every exercise calorie back or you'll go into starvation mode" argument. It's something you have to play around with, and see what works for you - you definitely want to get the minimum MFP says to get before exercise, and then you want to eat some proportion of your exercise calories, and this proportion is what's tricky to figure out - it depends on what deficit you've already built in (if you built in a 1000 calorie per day deficit to lose 2 lbs per week, you should probably aim to get all of your exercise cals in - if your deficit is lower, you can get away with not eating them all), how accurate the exercise calorie burned estimates are (get an HRM if you want a more accurate estimate), how you feel (energetic, dragging), etc...

    Sorry, that probably confused things more, but every individual is different, so there is no one right answer...
  • freedsgirl
    freedsgirl Posts: 7 Member
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    What I've been doing to make sure I don't overeat is to overestimate my intake and underestimate my exercise. For example, most of my exercise is walking, so i keep the treadmill somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 for the majority of my walk. However, in MFP i enter it as slow/moderate pace, 2.0 mph. I know im underestimating but I've seen it work for me so i'd rather underestimate and lose than be accurate and stay where I'm at. Also, if i don't have a specific brand in MFP that i'm looking for, I go with whatever option has the most calories. Granted, there are some days I go over my calorie count, but I'm just starting out so I just try to work it off the next day if I can.

    Hope this helps....

    Oh, and if you're working out as much as you say, then no, you're not eating too many calories. Try to keep it around 2000 on days you work out, but from the sounds of it, you're eating less and exercising more than you were, like me, so it should continue to work. Listen to your body. Keep going like you are. If you plateau, you might be taking in too much.
  • ouiouilezizi
    ouiouilezizi Posts: 36
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    Thanks everyone! It's going to take some trial and error. I'm going to buy a food scale today.

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